Destruction
by joudama
Summary: What's in a name? A rose by any other name...


**_Destruction_**

by j-chan   
jfaulkne@hotmail.com  


Author's Notes: Weirdly, this fic hit me when I was watching _Yami no Matsuei_. I was watching the King of Swords arc, and Hisoka was talking to Tsubake-hime. Tsubake-hime said Muraki had been like an angel to her. Hisoka, hating Muraki beyond all words, said, "If he was an angel, then his name was destruction." I stopped, blinked, and said, "Wait, did he say what I thnk he did?" and rewinded. It sounded to me like he had said "to iu hakkai." I rewinded, and yeah. That's what it sounded like. I launched myself at my Japanese dictionary and looked up "hakkai" and nada. Then looked up "hakai" and there it was. The way the seiyuu playing Hisoka had said it, with the inflection she gave it, it sounded like a doubled "k". I blinked, and went, "There was no _way_ Hakkai didn't know that when he chose his new name."  
Add to that the Nickelback song "How You Remind Me" which my roomate and I decided was the official Hakkai "Kanan, I hate you for what you did to me" song--"I said I love you and I swear I still do/But it must have been so hard/Living with me must have damned near killed you/And this is how you remind me of what I really am/It's not like you to sorry/I was waiting on a differnt story/This time I'm mistaken for handing you a heart worth breaking/I've been wrong, I've been down to the bottom of every bottle/And these five words in my head scream/Are we having fun yet"  
_ (Oh, yeah, and one of the ways to say "eight times" in Japanese is "hakkai.")_

* * *

Hakai.   
Hakkai.   
What a difference a character makes. 

I didn't choose that name without knowing. I am a sinner; my hands are stained with blood. I bathed in the blood of a thousand demons, and became one myself. When I began a new life, I chose one that was closer to the truth than Gonou had been.   
You don't get any closer than "destruction."   
Everyone is careful to give that tiny pause when they say my name. I'm not. I'm honest, after all.   
Hakkai, hakai, hakai, Hakkai. Say it eight times fast. Ha ha, just a little joke. Hakkai, eight times. One more play on my name, I suppose...   
Kanan...I loved you so much, did you know that?   
Did you care? I had to become a murderer...I did it for you, and what did you do? You killed yourself. I didn't care, Kanan. I didn't care what they had done to you. I didn't. I only wanted you back. I only wanted you. I only wanted to sink back into that peaceful life we had, together. I would have...I _did_ do everything for that life, to have it back...and you just took it away from me, Kanan. You just took it away when you took my knife and slit your throat in front of me.   
My God, Kanan...I killed for you. I killed two demon clans, and you...I have to live with that for the rest of my life, but you couldn't live with what had happened.   
Oh, God, I'm sorry. How can I say that? I don't know how you suffered...I don't know how many of them...I don't know...how can I blame you? How can I...Kanan...   
I wanted to die. I wanted so very much to die. But he saved me. Gojyo. I saw him, and all I could do, before everything went black, was smile. Because his hair...and his eyes...they were red, Kanan. Red like the blood on my hands. Even before I died, I couldn't be allowed to forget.   
But I didn't die, Kanan. I'm still alive. My lungs still breath, my heart still beats, my eyes still...well...my ears still chaff from the demonic power inhibitors I have to wear for the rest of my life, Kanan. I have to live with that, with becoming what I hated the most...couldn't you have lived with what they had done to you, too?  
Gojyo's staring at his hair again. It's growing out. When he thought I had died, he cut it all off. He's trying to decide what to do with it now. I hope he grows it out. It reminds me, Kanan. It reminds me of blood. It reminds me of you.   
I chose to live, Kanan. I chose to live, even if I have to do it without you. But I won't forget what I am. I won't forget what I've done. I'll remember every time I hear my name. 

Hakkai.   
Hakai. 

* * *

e-mail j-chan 


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